Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A96999
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The remonstrance of the Commons of England, to the House of Commons assembled in Parliament Preferred to them by the hands of the speaker.
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Walker, Henry, fl. 1643.
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1643
(1643)
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Wing W382E; ESTC R225914
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7,953
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8
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of God let the abuses be taken away but not the uses also 5. For the rectifying of matters amisse in Church Discipline and some things in Doctrine also as is pretended an Assembly of Divines is propounded to be convocated and consulted with The matter is right but the manner is surely amisse and so we are likely to lose the benefit of the substance for the errours in the circumstance which is That in this intended Convocation the Divines are not nominated by Divines who can best judge of their abilities which is the legall way the greatest part of those who are named are known or justly suspected to be persons ill disposed to the Peace of the Church and addicted too much to Innovation you your selves being all Lay-men are to be the onely Iudges of what shall be propounded and what determined the Divines but your assistants and the King is totally to be excluded from having any voice or hand in it And as it is propounded this is to be a perpetuall Convocation if the Houses of Parliament so please 6. Vnder the colour of freedome of Preaching seditious Sermons are preached daily even in the hearing of many of your selves who traduce the Kings Sacred on slander His Goverment and in expresse termes encourage the maintaining and continuing of this unnaturall and unchristian civill Warre and yet none are punished for it which makes us feare that this is and long hath beene made by some to be the principall engine to kindle this fire of Hell to the just scandall of all good men and slander of our Religion this doctrine comming so close to that of the Jesuits 7 And divers worthy learned and painefull Preachers have been committed to prison by you for delivering their consciences freely and religiously preaching of obedience to their Soveraigne these things we observe unto you as tending namely against the maintaining and propagation of the true Protestant Religion Touching that part which concerneth the maintaining of the Lawes we shall observe also some things unto you wherein your owne practice differs much from your professions a preposterous way to perswade us or any other by-standers 1 Ye assume that power to your selves that ye by a bare vote without an act of Parliament may expound or alter a knowne Law whereas the Commons house formerly assumed to themselves no such power but in order towards the making of a new Law nor did the House of Peeres challenge any such thing But they haveing the power Judicature as Judges they proceeded according to the Rules of the knowne Lawes and upon their honours are answerable for the justnesse of their Iudgment as other Courts are upon their oathes 2 Ye make your owne orders and ordinances to be as Lawes and compel them to be observed and with a stricter hand which may bind the Members of your house in their priviledges but have not nor ever had the force of Lawes until by both houses and the Kings Consent they were confirmed 3 And for your owne observation of the Lawes of the Land ye make your selves to be so farre above the reach of them that by your orders and ordinances ye enjoyne the Iudges and Ministers of Iustice to forbear contrary to their oathes to proceed in their ordinary course where ye please 4 Ye make an Ordinance to put the Militia of the Kingdom in such hands as ye please and shall confide in and this without the King and expresly against his Command 5 Ye Possesse your selves of the Navie Royall and appoint Admiralls and other Officers by Sea without the King and use those shipps against the King himselfe 6 Ye take the Kings Castles Forts and Ports the places of great strength in the Kingdome and keepe them against the King himselfe Hull and Portsmouth and VVindsor Castle and these three last actions appeare to us to have beene done by Designe for 7 The pretence at first was for the preservation of the Kingdome against some forreign Enemy but when none appeared in many moneths and we now beleeve none such in truth ever were a warre for the Parliament against the King himselfe was raised for the preservation of the King 8 And those which refuse to joyne in this warre with you or to contribute unto it which giving or lending of money horse armes c. ye proscribe as Malignants and persons ill-affected to the Common-wealth although we see not how it can be lesse then Treason against the K. to joyn with you therin 9. But to all those who are your Commanders or Officers of your Armie ye give large and even profuse entertainments and rewards but out of our purses who give you little thanks for it Thus much may suffice to give a taste how the laws are and how they are likely to be maintained in the course we are now in And for the Liberty of our persons and propriety of our Estates we shall say a little in the next place and by a few particulars judge what we may hope for therein 1. Ye take the Kings treasure ye intercept his revenue possesse his houses of accesse and all these for his own service and if any attend him or assist him they are condemned as Malignants Popish evill Counsellers and Enemies to the State 2. Ye have by messages endeavoured to perswade our Brethren of Scotland to join in your Rebellion against your Soveraign and this was not done by some private men alone but ordered by the Votes of your House 3. Ye condemn the Rebels in Ireland and that very justly for their horrid rebellion there and yet your selves do greater and more horrid acts of of barbarous hostility against the King even in his own person in England and when ye have been charged with it ye would excuse it by saying that it was not your fault but the fault of the King himself and of the Counsellours and Cavaliers about him that he went himself in person into the battle which he did with that magnanimity and Kingly courage as will adde to his honour and your shame whilst the world endureth Thus your action is become odious to God and man and your excuse for it ridiculous 4. And as if ye had shaken off all subjection and your selves become a State independant ye have treated by your Agents with forreign States Such usurpation upon Soveraigntie was never attempted in this Kingdom 5. Ye command your own orders ordinances and Declarations to be printed and published cum privilegio But if any thing come from the King which may truly inform and disabuse the people ye forbid those to be published and commit them to prison who do it 6. The monies advanced by gift or adventure or act of Parliament and souldiers prepared for Ireland to reduce the Rebels there ye have from time to time diverted to maintain this unnaturall warre in England so ye do visibly lose the Kingdome of Ireland that ye may be the better enabled to lose the Kingdome of England also 7.
THE REMONSTRANCE OF THE COMMONS OF ENGLAND TO THE House of Commons assembled in Parliament Preferred to them by the hands of the SPEAKER Mr. SPEAKER PRejudge us not we pray you because the title of this paper is a Remonstrance not a Petition the cause is for that Petitions have had ill successe of late yet the matter will be the same though the form differ We send this whatsoever ye will call it to the Honourable House of Commons who are the representative body of the whole Commons of England and we desire to present it by you who are the Speaker of that House The end of our desire is Peace and we hope we shall not erre in the way when we entreat you to be Mediatour Master Speaker all that we desire of you is to deliver this to the House to procure it to be read and to obtain us as good an answer unto it as you may And now we addresse our selves to the honourable House it self WHen this Parliament was called after severall unhappy breaches of some former we comforted our selves with an hope of a redresse of all our grievances and we made choice of you for our Knights Citizens and Burgesses to serve for us and we did put our confidence in you and beleeved that you according to our trust without any by-respects would have studied onely the peace and good of the Kingdome and we cannot be yet out of hope but that ye will perform it in the end But you must not take it amisse if as persons grieved we tell you where our griefs lie And to prepare our Cure the better we must desire you to call to your remembrances 1 That we are still the true body of the Commons of England you but the representative 2 That we have not so delegated the power to you as to 〈…〉 the governours of us and our estates you are in truth but our p … s to speak for us in that great Councell 3. That in right we ought to have accesse to those whom we have thus chosen and to the whole House as there shall be eause to impart our desires unto you and you ought not to refuse us 4. That by involving our votes in yours we had no purpose to make you perpetuall Dictators 5. That we never intended that you should have that latitude of power as to imbarke us all in a Civill Warre to the destruction of us and our posterities 6. Much lesse had we a thought that by any your votes ye would or could draw us in to any Acts of disloyalty or disobedience against our naturall Leige Lord to whom by the lawes of God and man we do owe and will pay all allegiance and fidelity Wherefore we must claim this freedome which belongs unto us as free-born Subjects and as persons interessed in the good and safety of this Kingdom as well as your selves that ye will speedily take those things into your wise and religious considerations which belong to our peace and which we out of the deep sense of our present miseries and of the apparent ruine of us all if not timely prevented do now offer unto you None of which shall be any new fancies or dreams of distempered brains but shal be such as have their grounds on apparent truth a cleer evidence For first we do professe to all the world that we are resolved with our lives and fortunes to maintain the true Protestant Religion established by the Laws in this Church of England To maintain our well setled Government under a Monarchy according to the known laws of this land To maintain the just liberty of our persons and property of our Estates according to the Rule of those Lawes To maintain the just priviledges of Parliament without which our Laws can hardly be continued And in the asserting of these we beleeve we have the concurrence of both the Houses of Parliament for such have been their daily Protestation And for the Kings Majesties Opinion herein he hath by many Declarations solemn protestations and religious vows before God and man declared himself so fully and freely that it is his unchangeable Resolution to live and die in the maintainance of all these that we hold our selves bounden in reverence to his person and in Christianity to beleeve that he will faithfully perform his word with his people And we have this further assurance thereof in that he hath descended so low from his throne as to acknowledge some errors which have slipt him in his bypast goverment to undertake not to give way to the like hereafter We wish with all our hearts that you would with the same ingenuity acknowledg your errors also amend them so we might soon by Gods blessing have our peace restored by your industries be made a happy Nation Let us then cleerly and freely expresse in what things we find our selves grieved which have been voted ordered and acted by you during this Parliament wherby the cure intended is become worse then the diseases under which we formerly languished we must with as much cleanness and freedom protest against them if they be not speedily reformed and remedied The particulars are these 1. That under the colour of advancing the true Protestant Religion incouragement is given to Anabaptists Brownists and all manner of Sectaries which multiply in every Corner which must be reformed or our true Religion is lost 2. Vnder the pretence of hatred of Popery which we also detest as far as their superstitious and idolatrous tenets are inconsistent with the true reformed Protestant Religion the Booke of Comm-prayer which is established by Law is cried down by many and all decent orders in Gods outward worship and every man left to the dictate of his own private spirit But let the Laws against Papists and Sectaries the two extreams be put in due execution we shall thank you for it 3. Vnder the colour of regulating the Ecclesiasticall Courts and taking away the High-Commission Court all spirituall Iurisdiction for the coērcive part thereof which is the life of the Law is taken away so that now no heinous crimes inquirable by those Courts as Adultery Incest c. can be punished No Heresie or Schisme reformed No Chruch can be inforced to be repaired No Church-officers as Church-wardens c. are compellable to take upon them their offices or perform their duties no not to provide Bread and Wine for the Communion No Parsons or Vicars can be inforced to attend their Cures or to give satisfaction for the pains of them who do No tithes can be recovered by their Law nor other Church-duties We beseech you think what will be the end of these things at the last 4. Vnder the name of reforming the Church-government ye endeavour to take away the function and being of Church-governours as Bishops and their Assistants the Deans and Chapters so to take away at once the preferments of learned men and the incouragements of learning In the name